June 14 (BTA) - The airports in the Bulgarian Black Sea cities of Burgas and Varna saw the record-setting increase in passengers of 219 per cent in May 2021 compared to the same time last year, Fraport Twin Star, the company that manages Burgas Airport and the nearby Varna Airport, told BTA.

Last month Burgas airport handled 5,073 passengers against 1,590 in May 2020. Despite the increase, the new level is nowhere close to the 125,998 passengers in May 2019.

The passenger traffic between January and May this year dropped by 44 per cent from a year earlier, to reach 11,315. The like figure was 20,297 in 2020 and 175,211 in 2019.

Between June 1 and 7, Burgas Airport handled 6,020 passengers, considerably more than the 1,171 in 2020 and much fewer than the 92,268 in 2019.

A breakup of the passengers according to the country of origin shows 1,954 from the UK, 1,291 from Poland, 887 from Israel, 361 from Luxembourg, 284 from Russia and 144 from Estonia.

Varna Airport

In May 2021, Varna Airport saw 38,536 passengers, up by 219 per cent from 2020 when there were 12,084 passengers. In the pre-pandemic 2019, the passengers totalled 143,133.

In January-May 2021, there were 119,634 passengers (against 186,429 in 2020 and 388,892 in 2019).

In April, Varna Airport handled passengers to and from Sofia (10,741), Germany (10,584), the UK (4,659), Austria (3,327), Israel (3,025), the Netherlands (2,276), Turkey, (1,623), Egypt (797), Luxembourg (476), Cuprus (361).

In 2020, the airports of Varna and Burgas handled over 1 million passengers on close to 11,000 flights by 49 air carriers.

Fraport Twin Star Airport Management is a German-Bulgarian company which has a 35-year concession for the airports of Vrana and Burgas. RI/LN/
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